The Bansfield Benefice is the collective name for the Parishes of Cowlinge, Denston, Lidgate, Ousden, Stansfield, Stradishall and Wickhambrook in the Diocese of St Edmundbury and Ipswich, Suffolk, United Kingdom.

Tuesday, August 1, 2017

I hope August offers you rest and recreation, or at least fond memory of the same. It seems an age past that folk enjoyed sending and receiving postcards, sharing the view, "wishing you were here". August brings fond memories of holidays by the sea, and one treasured holy memory of visiting the shores of Galilee. This was long before the advent of the 'selfie' and so I rely on tourist postcards and Holy Land tourist guide to re-capture the moment, but for that I'm thankful to see more of the view than of me.

Across the generations we take pictures of those important to us whom we have befriended and loved, who helped us and looked after us in our travels. Jesus' followers offer their collected remembrances of his loving words and deeds in the narration of the Gospels, not speaking of self, but only of he whom they came to treasure, to revere and call Holy of God. His followers of this age have just been looking through the photo album of the Gospels, with its word pictures of Jesus' holy days by the sea, the sea of Galilee. Jesus had stepped into a boat, and perhaps having looked along the shore and seen a sower trudging ceaselessly across the fields, he told the story of the sower. Those who heard this story were completely dependent on the success of harvest, their lives had no room for recreation in each day's search for daily bread, perhaps some had only just left the field for the work of the sower to begin.

The path, rocky ground and thorns upon and among which the seed was scattered reminds us that our lives too can fall on hard times, and become diminished in competition with the thorns of this age.
Yet Jesus' story teaches us that God still looks for a harvest from the field of our lives whatever our circumstance. That harvest being that we be among the picture snaps of other's lives as befriended and loved, for the help we offered in looking after their needs helping them to grow in hope.

May this summer see your portrait in your harvest of good works among today's postcards of social media photo pages by those who come to count you for friend for your sure help and support in their need.